


Memory, Pierced

by taichara



Category: Yoroiden Samurai Troopers | Ronin Warriors
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 18:53:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5344842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even centuries of phantasmagoria and corruption  can sometimes be undone -- or tilted sideways -- by something as simple as long-forgotten trifles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memory, Pierced

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: _any, any, old copper coins_

Deep in the embrace of the hell-realm's billowing shadow, Rajura stalked through black passages no more real that his own mirages. The Demon General's footfalls were dogged with a dull sensation -- not quite softness, not quite mist -- for all that he should have been treading across smooth-planed planking or, perhaps, flagstones.

It was all a lie, of course, as all things were. What could be claimed to exist in his master's kingdom was all a figment, an extension of Arago's will. That those hints of some massive grand hill-castle (or sometimes, as right this moment, a fragile and undefended manor from ages past -- and was that not an interesting facet, mused the General of Phantasms) kept he and his fellows contained was simply another expression of that will. Of that whim. 

And Arago's nightmare realm there was also no passage of time.

The shades carried through the motions of astronomy -- calling on baleful signs for their in'you works -- though no stars shone even weak and feeble light through the black realm's smothering darkness. There was no need for that mortal concept. Why would the undying and the deathless need such a thing? No need for any such mortality. 

A thin-lipped smile flitted across Rajura's lean features, unseen in the dark. Even he, even they, had long since ceased to be anything that could be called mortal ...

If they had ever been so. He'd come to doubt that. 

The passage turned; a whisper of smothered air (another conceit) betrayed the displacement of screens and dividing barriers. In the darkness, seen yet unseen, a scattering of soul-shred fabrics, nearly intangible; the smooth fractures of the bone writing table, the cold-biting inkstone. On the edge of his senses, the knowledge of caskets of belongings upturned, exposed to merge and blend with the nightmare realm like the lies they were. Not a thing had been left untouched. 

A rumbling curse vibrated in Rajura's throat; someone -- Shuten, most likely, the meddling bastard -- had invaded his quarters yet again. Incensed, he stalked towards the centre of the chamber, anger burning a lance of pain behind his sealed dead eye. There would be ichor spilled and debts paid, in pain and mind-bending terror, for the affront --

The _*shhnng*_ of metal against metal, tinny and clattering, halted him like an arrow in the lungs. Something -- he'd struck something, something _solid_ , many little such things, as he'd moved ...

Rajura stood silently, head cocked, hale eye dilated ... there. Across the dream-hell flooring, beneath one metal-clad foot, glinting from the folds of woven souls. Slowly, patiently, wondering, he lowered himself on one knee -- armour grating, sinking imperceptibly into the floorboards -- and snatched up a handful of the offending things.

_Mon._ Thick with verdigris, still the tang of the metal, like blood, registered to his inner senses. And with that -- with the weight in his palm, tangible, real -- came the whisper in his mind of all the mad dreams and desperate hauntings that came hand in hand.

Tiny things, those coins; so insignificant. Only the difference between keeping death at bay and expiring through the lack of even mixed grain to fill one's belly. The lack of a woodcutter's shelter over one's head. 

And, clinging to them, rotted threads of pale grey, of soil brown; the remnants of a time before cold soul-steel and wraith's silks enfolded him. 

Remnants of _time_. Of another life. A human life.

Flickers of blood-soaked ground, of skies filled with arrows --

So many things, half-forgotten for so long. 

Phantasms.


End file.
